Intonation refers to the pitch patterns used in speech. It is how we say things rather than what we say, and without intonation it is impossible to understand expressions and thoughts conveyed through words. Intonation patterns group words into tone units that package information and convey attitudes. The placement of stress and pitch movement within and between tone units is important for meaning.

1. Intonation
Intonation is about how we say things,
rather than what we say. Without
intonation, it's impossible to understand
the expressions and thoughts that go with
words.
Listen to somebody speaking without
paying attention to the words: the 'melody'
you hear is the intonation.

2. WHAT IS INTONATION
1. Intonation is a term used to refer to the
distinctive use of different patterns of pitch that
carry meaningful information.
2. The kinds of pitch modulation which are found
in whole utterances. Intonation contours can be
used to highlight certain elements in an
utterance, to bundle words together into
information chunks,& to convey speaker’s
attitude to what he/she is saying.(Philip
Carr,page#78)

3. WHAT IS INTONATION
• Intonation can be described as the
movements or variations in pitch to which
we attach familiar labels describing levels
(e.g. high / low) and tones (e.g. falling
/rising), etc. (Ranalli, 2002)

4. INTONATION
Articulatory Acoustic phonetics Auditory phonetics
phonetics(production (transmission point of (Perception point of view)
point of view) view)
Rate of vocal folds Fundamental frequency Pitch
The quicker the vocal folds The higher Fo (higher The higher the pitch the
vibrate. number of cycles per sensation.
second)

5. Tone & Intonation languages
• We can divide language into languages which are tone languages
and those which are not, English falls into second category, that
is, it is not a tone language.
• All the languages in the world use consonants and vowels to
build morphemes, which in turn join together to form words.
• Thus the English word ‘me’ is made up of a nasal consonant
followed by a high vowel.
• If we change the consonant to a/b/ we would get a different
word, ‘be’, and if we change the vowel to a low vowel, we would
also get a different words, ‘ma’.
• We may pronounce the word ‘ma’ with various pitch patterns,
depending on the occasion. We may pronounce it with high
pitch if we are emphatic, we may say it with a rising pitch in a
question etc.

6. Tone languages
• But these different pitch patterns do not alter the word in the
way that changing a consonant or changing a vowel does.
• These different pitch patterns that do not change but merely
add to the basic meaning of words are called intonation.
• Yet there are some languages in the world that use pitch
patterns to build morphemes in the same way consonant and
vowels are used. The best known such language is Chinese.

7. Tone languages
• In Chinese, the syllable ‘ma’ when pronounced with a falling
pitch patterns means, ‘to scold’.
• When pronounced with a rising pattern, the meaning is
‘hemp’, when pronounced with a high level pattern, the
meaning is ‘mother’ as in some dialects of English, and lastly,
when pronounced with a low dipping pattern, the meaning is
‘horse’.
• When pitch patterns are used in this lexical capacity i.e. to
build word and morphemes much as consonants and vowels
do, they are called tones.
• And languages that use tones in this way are called tone
languages.

8. • English is not tone language because different
tones make no difference in meanings.
• But chinese is a tone language
• Urdu is stressed lang
• English is not stress language

9. DEVELOPMENT OF INTONATION
The study of intonation went through many changes in the
twentieth century.
 British linguistics Daniel Jones & (1926)
The most intensive development began during the 1940.
In United States the theory that evolved was based on ‘pitch
phonemes’ (Pike. 1945).
It was developed in 1951 and then by Halliday (1967).


10. Intonation
Halliday divides intonation into “the three
T’s”:
1. Tonality (the chunking of speech into
intonational phrases, or tone-units)
2. 2.Tone (mainly, but not only: fall, rise, and
fall-rise
3. Tonicity (nucleus placement).

11. Intonation
Halliday divides intonation into “the three
T’s”:
Tonality (the chunking of speech into
intonational phrases, or tone-units),
2.Tonicity (nucleus placement), and
3.Tone (mainly, but not only: fall, rise, and
fall-rise

12. TONE UNIT
a group of words forming a distinctive unit in an
utterance, containing a nucleus and optionally one or
more other syllables before and after the nucleus.
How do we identify tone units
• Are there any physical constraints on the
extent of tone unit?
• How do we identify tone units in connected
speech?
• What communicative function(s) do tone
units realise in speech?

13. Constraints on Tone Units.
• We break up spoken language into tone groups
because we need to breathe, and so there is a
physical reason.
• There is also the need to think; that is, tone
groups also have a cognitive basis. While we are
speaking one tone group, we are planning the
next one, and so the tone group carries only one
idea at a time. Thus the pace of the tone groups,
and the information they convey, matches the
speaker's thoughts.

14. Identification of tone unit boundaries
in connected speech
• Pause
• Pitch
• Speed

15. Phonetic clues
• A perceivable pitch change immediately
following the final accented syllable
• Speed – syllables towards the end of a tone
unit tend to be relatively slow while syllables
towards the start of a tone unit tend to be
relatively quick.
combination of pause, pitch change, and a
change of pace.

16. Pause
Some scholars e.g. Brazil (1997) argue that the
boundaries of a tone unit are marked by a pause.
communicative function of a tone unit
• Halliday (1967) recognised that
• each tone unit realised semantically one
information unit – in other words we
• use tone units to package our messages into
bite sized chunks of information e.g.,
• || i THINK || you have made good PROgress
// THIS year ||

17. Link between
tone-unit and units of grammar
• Halliday also realised that if a tone unit equals an information unit it is likely to
• also correspond with a clause. Some statistical evidence for this is found in the
• Crystal and Davy (1975) corpus approximately where around 50% of all tone
• units corresponded to clauses.
• 4. || we’re looking forward to BONfire night ||
Marked and Unmarked Tonality
= a Clause (Unmarked)
Tone Unit
≠ a Clause (MarkedAt phrase and clause boundaries:
e.g.
In France where farms tend to be smaller the
subsidies are more im portant

18. Analysis of Utterances to Understand
Tone – Unit
One syllable utterance
You
This is one tone unit.
Note: Underlined syllable carry tone.
Three Syllable Utterance
Is it you?
This is one tone unit.
Note: the underlined syllable have more prominence.

19. Division of intonational contour
H.Palmer (1922) was the first one to divide the
intonational contour into three main segments:
• head (all the stressed and the unstressed syllables
before the nucleus),
• nucleus (the most prominent syllable in the
utterance) and
• tail (the unstressed syllables following the nucleus).

20. • R. Kingdon (1958) suggests a division of the
intonational contour into five parts: prehead
(initial unstressed syllables), head (the first
stressed syllable), body (all the stressed and
the unstressed syllables in the scale
preceding the nucleus), nucleus (the most
prominently stressed syllable) and tail (the
final unstressed syllables following the
nucleus). For example:

21. Tone Unit
1 But he is not really interested in it.
(1— prehead, 2 — head, 3 — body, 4 — nucleus, 5 — tail).
The first three segments (1,2,3) constitute the prenuclear
pattern of the intonation contour.
The fifth segment (5) is the postnuclear part of it. The
nuclear part (4) is of primary importance. It is compulsory for
every intonation group, while the rest of the segments are
optional.

22. Division of the contour
• J. D.O'Connor and G. F.Arnold (1973) stick to
R. Kingdon's system. However, they suggest a
four-part division of the contour: prehead,
head, nucleus and tail, uniting head and
body into one segment that is head.

23. (i) Tonic Syllable
• Tonic syllable is an obligatory component of tone unit. The
centre of the unit, around which everything else is
constructed, is the tonic syllable, or nucleus.
For example:
John, is it you?
• In this example, there are two tone units because there are,
two tonic syllables in it. First is John, one syllable utterance)
second is it you? (Three syllable utterance).
• It contains a high degree of prominence which is a property of
stressed syllable, so, tonic syllable contains.
Tone + Stress:
Tonic stress: The stress that tonic syllable is having is called
tonic stress.

24. Location of the tonic syllable
• Of great linguistic importance
• The most common position – on the last
lexical word of the tone-unit
• But, for contrastive purposes any word can
become the bearer of the tonic syllable
• Thus, the placement of the tonic syllable
represents the focus of the information

25. (ii) The Head:
The head is all that part of a tone unit that extends from the first stressed
syllable up to the tonic syllable.
For example:
Give me, those?
Head TS
If there is no stressed syllable proceeding the tonic syllable,
there cannot be any head.

26. (iii) The Pre-Head:
The unstressed syllable before the head is called pre-head.
For example
In an hour
Pre-head TS
Pre-head can be found in two situations.
When there is no head.
As in
For example:
In an hour
PH TS
b) When the head is after the unstressed syllable.
For example:
In a little less than an, hour
PH H TS

27. (iv) The tail
Any syllable that follows the tonic syllable or any
syllable between tonic syllable and of tone unit is called
the Tail.
For example:
Look at it
TS Tail
I might buy it
H TS Tail

28. Exercises
• Divide the following utterances into tone units
and decide where the tonic or nucleus might fall
in each tone unit:
1. The first student to finish can go early
2. Sadly, Maurice has gone away
3. The person who was watching me left a ticket
behind
4. Alan couldn't make it so Ken took his place

29. Answers
1. //The first student to finish// can go early//
2. //Sadly// Maurice has gone away//
3. // The person who was watching me //left a
ticket behind//
4. //Alan couldn't make it //so Ken took his
place//

30. Grammatical function of Tonality
• 22 || my brother who lives in LONdon || got MARried
||
• 23 || my BROther || who lives in LONdon || got
MARried ||
• 24 || the man and the woman dressed in BLACK ||
STOOD up ||
• 25 || the MAN || and the woman dressed in BLACK ||
STOOD up ||
• 26 || they sent JOHN || a DOCtor || to HELP him||
• 27 || they sent john a DOCtor || to HELP him ||

31. Tone – unit and the structure of tone
unit:
• Tone: Tone is the overall behaviour of
pitch.
• Pitch: Pitch is frequency of vibration of
vocal cords.
• Tone unit: For the purpose of analyzing
intonation, a unit greater than syllable one
syllable. Usually tone – unit is always
composed of more than one syllable.

32. Tone unit boundaries
• Neutral division into tone units:
• Tone unit boundaries correspond to clause boundaries.
• Emphatic:
• A tone unit boundary occurs in the middle of a clause
(usually at a phrase boundary).
• | On the Saturday we went on the London Eye | (tone unit
= clause)
• | On the Saturday | we went on the London Eye |
(marked/emphatic – tone unit boundary between adverbial
and subject)

33. Tone
Tone is the major pitch movement within the tone unit. The
overall behavior of pitch is “tone”
Choice of pitch movement
•The meaning component deriving from tone does not attach
to the word level only but to the complete tone unit.
•The prominent words are the sub-classes of the tonic
syllabus.
•The communication value of prominence and tone choice
depends on interaction between listener and speaker.
•When is the meeting?
•On Saturday afterNOON
•On SATurday afternoon

34. Tone
Tone functions
(i) First possibility of pitch movement and variation in is on “head” of
the tone-unit .
(ii) Second possibility the movement and variation of pitch for tonic
syllable, in the form of rise and fall.
In a little less than an, hour
PH H TS
Pitch variations in Head
“all that part of a tone-unit that extends from the first syllable
up to tonic syllabus.”
Pitch possibilities in the head:
1.High Head
2.Low head

35. High Heads
The stressed syllable which begins the head is
high in pitch ,usually it is higher than the
beginning pitch of the tone on the tonic syllable.
The ‘bus was late is ‘that the end

36. Low Heads
In the low head the stressed syllable which begins the head is
low in pitch, it is lower than the beginning pitch of the tone on
the tonic syllable
The ,bus was late is ,that the end

37. Low Head
Unstressed syllables continue the pitch of the stressed
syllable that precedes them with high and low heads.
We ’asked if it had come. We ‚asked if it had come.

38. Pitch movement in tonic syllable
Tones are divided into two classes: static tone & kinetic tone
Static tone - a syllable is pronounced on a level ,no pitch
variation
Kinetic tone-change in pitch on physiological level by tension
of vocal cords
Halliday lists five intonation choices for the falling and rising tone movements.
Tone symbol tonic movement terminal pitch
t tendency
1. ` Falling low
2. ‚ Rising high
3. ˆ falling-rising high
4. ˇ rising-falling low
5. - Level low

39. Transcription of pitch movement
• Daniel Jones uses a graphic transcription with
a stave of three horizontal lines.
• Upper and lower limits of speaker’s Voice
range.
• Top, middle and bottom
• Stressed & unstressed syllable have small and
large dots respectively.

40. 1.The Falling tone-(The glide-down)
• Polarity (truth value or validity)is known and
stated, there is certainty with Yes or No
• A fall in the voice from a fairly high pitch to a very
low one.
• On a single syllable the voice falls within the
syllable.

41. The Falling Tone
• On more than one syllable the voice either falls
within the stressed syllable or it moves down to the
next syllable.
• Unstressed syllables at the end are all very low.

42. The Falling tone-(The glide-down)
Pre- head + tonic syllable
Any unstressed syllable before the tonic syllable have
low pitch.

43. The Rising-tone (The glide-up )
 Polarity (truth-value) is unknown and information
is required.
 The tone conveys an impression that something
more is to follow.
 Frequently accompany polite and friendly feelings

44. Rising Tone the Glide-Up
The rise in the glide-up either take place on one syllable, before the rise any
stress word is felt to be important but there is no change of pitch

45. The Rise-Fall Tone (compound tone)
• With the rise-fall tone we find a similar situation: if
the tonic syllable is followed by a single syllable in
the tail, the “rise” part of the tone takes place on the
first (tonic) syllable and the “fall” part is on the
second.
ˆno ˆno one ˆno sir

46. The Rise-Fall Tone (compound tone)
When there are two or more syllables in the tail, the
syllable immediately following the tonic syllable is
always higher and any following syllables are low.
ˆAll of them went
Thatˆs a nice way to speak

47. Fall –Rise tones(compound tone)
• The pitch movement are distorted by the structure of syllables
they occur on. If there is a tail of two or more syllable the
normal pitch movement fall on the tonic syllable and to remain
low until the last stress syllable
I .Might have .thought of .buying it
Most of it was for them

48. The Fall-Rise Tone(compound tone)
• The fall is on the first stress syllable, the fall and
rise are separated. The rise is on the last stressed
syllable .
• Glide down and Glide up tone.
• Pitch movement is for the pitch to fall on the tonic
syllable and remain low until the last syllable in
the tail.